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Study: Millennials will pay for content, but not news

Someday, perhaps there will be a study done on how many studies have examined what millennials will or won’t do.

In the meantime, a new study has found that millennials will pay for content, but only certain types. In case you had any doubts, it’s bad news for print
journalism.

The American Press Institute has found that a scant 15 percent of millennials pay for print newspaper, and 21 percent pay for print magazines.

Here’s the breakdown of what millennials are willing to pay for (and what they consume that someone else pays for):

In total, 40 percent of millennials paid for news products or services out of their own pockets. Plus, millennials over the age of 21 are twice as likely
(45 percent) to pay for news, which supports the narrative that people will age into paying for news content. (This also tells me that 45 percent of
millennials are too lazy to Google, “How can I get around a news website’s paid firewall?”)

Paid news is still not the most popular way millennials are keeping up with current events. Facebook and search engines remain more popular methods to
obtain news than paid sites.

The trend could be the reason more and more publishers are turning directly to social media to spread its articles. The Washington Post announced that it will publish
all its content on Facebook, and many other publications are using Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to capture audience members’ attention.

It also underlines the importance of evaluating where your audience is before spending time and money creating content and pitching to reporters.